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Hey All,
A topic has come up of late in the IRC channel in regards to the general feel of the forums and the community that supports them. Things have progressed further than I would have liked with out this being addressed more publicly because I would much rather have snubbed this out sooner rather than later.. but I have been busy.
Here is the general rule I would like people to follow: Wheaton's Law "Don't be a dick." Those of you from the IRC channel know that this is the only rule I ask people in there to follow and we generally have a good and lively time chatting about all manner of things. This is basic rule that just about everyone understands and I am going to expand it to the forums from here moving forward.
If you can not help people in a helpful and polite manner then I simply ask you to stop. Now I generally take a back seat to moderating the forums as I like to participate in the suggestions forum fairly heavily at times and would rather do so as a forums user than a moderator. But I am also fairly well known for being the person who constantly puts their foot down and so I am stepping up and doing so on here.
If you find yourself unable to respond to a message politely then I ask that you do not respond. This mostly focuses on the increasing level of hostility found within the Suggestion forum as well as the Server forum. I do not care if this is the 30th some odd time you have seen someone make the same suggestion. Or even if the new post on an older topic is one entry above the old one. I expect the members of this forum to respond politely to the user, new or old, and point to the older topic if it applies and even go the extra step to suggest they either add in new information or to summarize the outcome of the previous discussion based upon the new post's entry into it. That is what we are here for, that is why I close most topics instead of deleting them, so that they can be found and referenced down the road.
The next topic is the slew of derailment attempts I have seen as of late. If you want to have fun and joke around that is what the off topic forum is for and pretty much anything goes there. I do not expect to read a suggestion thread and have to go through 3 pages of image memes people have shot back and forth. Quite simply this is a waste of my time to read and then have to clean up.
Now for the summary. I am going to start taking a more active role, especially in policing the suggestion forum, and handing out warn levels to people whom I see doing this. These will be indiscriminate and applied not to just the first person who derails or is impolite on a topic or response, but to everyone whom follows the lead of that person. As I do not like doing things with out giving you all warning this post shall serve as that warning. If you have a desire to bring this topic up with me then I invite you to do so on the IRC channel.
Lets raise the level of quality and grow the community. Let us not descend into the quality often found on the minecraft or league of legend forums. There is simply no need for that here. Be passionate about things, just do not be abusive.

Recently I've seen a few server listings showing up on the first page of the Servers forum that have been closed for an extended period of time, but have recently gotten a reply from a new member who didn't realize the server is offline. To help prevent this from happening in the future, it would be greatly appreciated if you could use the report function on the original post of any servers that have been confirmed as offline, so that the topic may be locked.
If you are the admin of a server and plan on taking the server offline, please use the report function on the original post of your topic to let the TFC Staff know that the topic should be locked.
If you are the admin of a server that has a locked topic, and would wish to bring the server back online, please use the report function on the original post of the topic to let the TFC Staff know that the topic should be unlocked.
As always, please remember to follow rule #3 of the servers forum and update your topic title to contain the version of TFC that the server is currently running. You can do so by editing the OP, and then clicking on "Use Full Editor."

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Well, at least you're almost guaranteed to have different stone type per islands...

Actually from what Bioxx has said in the past, that's not the case. In this post, under the Metal Tiers thread, Bioxx said:

" Islands do not have multiple stone types...Sea level was placed back down at 64 to allow for more movement of the terrain. There are plans to address this lack of layers in another way that I havent really started on nor talked about yet but is pretty easy to guess at. "

The upshot would appear to be - at least at the time of that posting back in November - that each island is just one stone layer 64 blocks deep, and all the same throughout the island. Which brings issues in terms of limited ores and building materials. I have a guess/hope at what the 'other way' to address it is though.

As for Biomes, ya, from what Bioxx has posted in the past, it's safe to say that island will have a variety of biomes. I'm hoping trees, crops, and animals will have limitations and hindrances as to where they can grow though. So no growing palm trees at sub-arctic latitudes, hopefully.

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Its important to keep in mind that each vertical set of islands is the same difficulty and there are 9 of them. Making it to Tier 1(Copper) would mean you could easily visit/conquer 27 islands. There are only 16 stone types. Not being able to find the stone you want really should not be an issue.

As to what Darmo has said about the islands being 64 blocks deep, that way on the low side. Beaches may be at 64 but the majority of the landmass of most islands well exceeds that height.

To the question of trees, the current setup is to have 3 tree types per island, similar to TFC1. There is a common, uncommon, and rare tree type for each island. Sub Tropical and Tropical Islands will always have palm trees in low lying areas, typically very close to oceans and areas of high relative moisture.

As for biomes, the island maps do somewhat track individual biome types on a per hex basis, but exactly how much I'll be taking that into account in generation remains to be seen. Marsh and Lake biomes are the only types that are really used atm.

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Its important to keep in mind that each vertical set of islands is the same difficulty and there are 9 of them. Making it to Tier 1(Copper) would mean you could easily visit/conquer 27 islands. There are only 16 stone types. Not being able to find the stone you want really should not be an issue.

...assuming a benevolent RNG ;)

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Having only 1 type of rock per island is not very immersive tbh. TFC1 has mountains composed of several different rock types, such as igneous intrusive rock in sedimentary rock. I hope the 'geological' aspects in TFC2 are not taking a step backwards. Also, if the islands have mountains up to 255 from 64, that is really excessive and could make mountains look really weird on a "small" island. That is just my imagination tho.

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It's you're imagination terex :). These arent vanilla MC/TFC1 mountains which were essentially giant spikes from y64. Depending on the island features, it might be a slow, gradual climb in elevation from the coast or consist of steep beach cliffs, etc. Each island is allowed to have a number of 'Features' that alter the entire feel of the island.

My personal favorite feature is Valleys. When a valley forms, it starts with a single hex and spreads out the find a bunch of nearby hexes( these can be quite large), then it sets the elevation of all these hexes to whatever the lowest elevation of all grabbed hexes is. Sometimes the valley is just a shallow depression because it did not grab any very low hexes. Other times however, the valley may have some cliff walls that are 30-40 blocks in height. This can lead to very nice scenery.

The greatest benefit to precomputed islands is that we can have geologic features that make sense in their surroundings, unlike standard procedural world.

As far as the lack of stone layers, it was something that I really debated about but ultimately decided was in the best interest of the game in general. That was the very first feature that I ever modded for minecraft, and was essentially what kicked off TFC1, so it really wasn't an easy decision.

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By your description I have the impression that these Islands would need to be really massive, Like almost as big as continents in the old Gen. What dimensions can we expect for the Islands?

Another question is about base building. How do you envision the game playing? Are we suppose to build a new base for each Island that we conquer? Or keep coming back to the Original Island or have a main Base somewhere?

Also for Multiplayer if a group of players join latter will they find the Island domesticated in a sense or will they have the experience of conquering the perils all over?

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While, it may not be added right away or at all.. A suggestion as far as getting slight variables in rock types. is have different rock types, "spawned" like ores, inside appropriate rock types of course these areas wont have ores spawning in them, and would take away some of the ore spawning zones possibly making it more limited.. THAT or have some noise added among rock types. allowing rock types of similar types, such as the old metamorphic stones kinda spawn together with a noise type generation. this would still allow ores of certain types to spawn in an area, while giving a variable in the bedrock.

I really hope mountains are now going to be more looked for in terms of mining and offer greater ore generation, since we again only have 64 blocks downwards to explore [at sea level].. Not that I don't dislike that, kinda wish there was a watertable though. it'd be cool to >Dig a block. >instant water source spawns in its place. but I can see the glitchyness in doing so, so it can stay a dream.

Are lava pools going to spawn? and if so what biome?

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The upshot would appear to be - at least at the time of that posting back in November - that each island is just one stone layer 64 blocks deep, and all the same throughout the island. Which brings issues in terms of limited ores and building materials. I have a guess/hope at what the 'other way' to address it is though.

I meant that different islands would have different stone types, hence 'per islands'.

The probability of not getting all stone types with 27 islands in hand is (16^-27)*(27!/(27-16)!), roughly 10^-11. So it's just a matter of traveling and transporting the stone.

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I know in the past it was suggested that rock salt basically be a deposit within a rock biome, as clay is now. Which is a good idea since salt is currently either something you have 0 of, or something you have endless amounts of. It'd be good if it were a somewhat limited resource. I think it'll definitely be interesting to see what stones got dropped to go from 21 to 16. There's visually redundant ones like chalk and granite, or marble and rock salt. And then there's the ones that have few good minerals, like diorite, phyllite, and slate. Or the ones that are extremely mineral redundant with other stones, like most of the sedimentary stones.

34 minutes ago, Miner239 said:

meant that different islands would have different stone types, hence 'per islands'. The probability of not getting all stone types with 27 islands in hand is (16^-27)*(27!/(27-16)!), roughly 10^-11. So it's just a matter of traveling and transporting the stone.

That's not an entirely clear way of using 'per'. Regardless, it's true that transporting the stone was definitely not a huge deal in TFC1. But again, changes planned for TFC2 sound like they're basically targeted at making stone and other building materials non-trivial to transport. So I wouldn't be so dismissive of the chore of transporting stone purely for building. Players will of course be able to change it however they like for single player. Multiplayer will be another matter.

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A world that is directly separated into different difficulty levels with resources according to level and mutually exclusive?

I can see how this would make sense in SOME MC mod, but TFC? I thought your goal was to make the world behave in a way that one could fully accept it as existing world and you acieved this quite well so far. There is barely a more immersive mod or even modpack than TFC and I can't see how the "island levels" thing would be able to achieve that.

Am I missing something?

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Not to split hairs Kitty, but isn't it the *regions* that are 4k square? So the island will never be fully 4k across, since there's always going to be some ocean border right? And in some cases there may be no island at all? So the island sizes can vary from none to maybe a small archipelago, all the way up to some upper limit, depending on the minimum ocean border? so maybe 3800, 3900 max diameter, something like that?

But maybe of more interest, is it sort of a weighted process? So like, will *most* islands be pretty large, and only the rare few regions be ocean or very small islands? Is the process weighted toward providing very large islands most of the time?

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In tfc 1 many times I would choose to build my base on the intersection of 3 stone types. With some luck I would have different layers, that meant easy access to 9 different stone types.

The only traveling involved was the initial choosing of the spot for the base.

Now with the one stone type per Island and 4000 blocks between the center of one region to the center of the next One would need to travel 30000 blocks to see that many rock types.

That would not account for the fact that inventory is limited and no one is going to travel that far.

I just fear that building will be severe limited in tfc2.

I can actually see a way to get 5 different stones, with a bit of luck you may have the islands N S E and W of you with different stones. It would still mean so much traveling that it would not be practical.

One thing to consider is that I actually have no idea how the new tfc2 will work, maybe I will instantly fall in love with it and forget all about everything else.

Maybe I am overthinking, in any case I'd love to read everyone's thought on that.

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The way portals are currently planned is that there is a single one in the middle of the island. Going through that takes you to another dimension that is nothing more a + shape path in each of the cardinal directions, with a portal at the end of each of the paths that takes you to the island in that direction.

Edit: Scratch that, it was the old plan for portals or at least how I understood it when Bioxx and I were first discussing it. The actual portal system is like you described, it's on the edge of the island and will take you to the edge of the adjacent island. Basically replacing the about 500 block ocean travel that will not be possible to do by default.

How the portals get unlocked so you can use them is a whole other thing entirely that hasn't been completely decided on yet.

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Yes, teleportation would solve this issue. although maybe I did not understood how it would work,

For some reason I thought it would be used just to cross the ocean between one Island and the next.

The way I imagined, one would still need to cross an Island to reach a teleport point to the next island.

It was just a replacement for the broken Minecraft boat.

I know in a way it makes no sense to discuss features that are not implemented yet, on the other hand latter on it would be to late.

Please, I am just trying to add to the discussion and maybe stir up some new ideas.

It may be just prejudice on my part, I really have a strong aversion to teleports, they always seemed like cheating to me.

Fixed portals make it more acceptable for some people.

Maybe a portal in the center of each Island, In a way that you need to first travel there and activate the portal before you can use it. Not really sure how to tell the portal where you want to go.

Still the combination of tiered islands and portals would not feel like TerraFirmaCraft for me, more like RoguelikeDungeonsWithoutCeilingCraft.

Minecraft has the Nether and it can with massive preparation be used for quick(speed*10) travel, but why would improved geography with better boats/rafts, maps and solar orientation be such a bad idea?

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Still the combination of tiered islands and portals would not feel like TerraFirmaCraft for me, more like RoguelikeDungeonsWithoutCeilingCraft.

Just a reminder of rule #1 of this discussion forum:

Please remember that TFC2 is a 100% rewrite and re-conception of TerraFirmaCraft. It is a new mod entirely, and will be very different from what you are currently used to. Very little of the original TerraFirmaCraft code will be ported and included in TFC2.

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Please remember that TFC2 is a 100% rewrite and re-conception of TerraFirmaCraft. It is a new mod entirely, and will be very different from what you are currently used to. Very little of the original TerraFirmaCraft code will be ported and included in TFC2.

[Still the combination of tiered islands and portals would not feel like TerraFirmaCraft for me, more like RoguelikeDungeonsWithoutCeilingCraft.

Minecraft has the Nether and it can with massive preparation be used for quick(speed*10) travel, but why would improved geography with better boats/rafts, maps and solar orientation be such a bad idea?] <--Repost because this forum confuses me.

I expected TFC2 to be a lot different than TFC in many ways, that's why I held back with suggestion based on TFC, but to me this does not only feel like not the same mod, but a mod that is trying to achieve something completely different, like a not-at-all-marginal portion of players might like TFC and dislike TFC2 and the other way around.

I still can't know. TFC2 is not out, I have not played it and this is just a single semi-founded opinion.

It will probably be great in any case, but if it will really be so different, perhaps TFC should not be abandoned after all.

Edited 19 Apr 2016 by Shirololtypo

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The reason that TFC1 has been abandoned is because there is no feasible way to port it beyond Minecraft 1.7.10, and like every other mod out there when the main game updates to new versions but the mods don't the mods are eventually a thing of the past used by very few players.